Electronic paper is a type of electronic display designed to reflect ambient light back to the viewer. This is opposed to traditional display technologies that emit rather than reflect light. Electronic paper is thus designed to mimic the appearance of ink on physical paper. One type of electronic paper display is an electrophoretic display. One type of electrophoretic display includes a two dimensional array of microcapsules. Each microcapsule includes a number of particles suspended in a liquid. In one example, the particles include both white particles and black particles. These two different colors of particles are oppositely charged. By manipulating an electric field across each microcapsule, that microcapsule can be switched to appear white or black.
One way to manipulate the electric field is to form an array of switching circuitry underneath the array of microcapsules. This switching circuitry addresses each microcapsule individually to switch the state of that microcapsule to either display a white or black color to a human viewer. The costs of manufacturing such electronic paper displays are due primarily to the cost of the switching circuitry used to change the state of the display.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.